


odd jobs are a cut-throat industry nowadays

by suitablyskippy



Category: Gintama
Genre: Arguably Excessive Loyalty, Gen, Vampires
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-10-31
Updated: 2016-11-03
Packaged: 2018-08-28 05:43:04
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 10,280
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8433934
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/suitablyskippy/pseuds/suitablyskippy
Summary: “It’s a combination of things,” says Tae, and raises her voice above the hammering rain. “The way I keep dreaming about very old castles that don’t seem to have been vacuumed in decades, to start with. And then the way that I’m usually tearing people’s throats open in those dreams. And the way that just thinking about eating vegetables makes me feel sick. And the way I have to leave the room when I run a bath, because something about the sight of all that water… all that fast water… all that water moving very, very quickly—”
“My guess was mainly based on the length of your teeth,” Kyuubei tells her seriously. “They didn’t used to look like that, Tae-chan. I’d remember if they did.” 
(It’s a dark and stormy night in Edo, and it’s almost certainly Tae’s fault.)





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> 31/10, HAPPY BIRTHDAY TO SHIMURA TAE!!! THE CITY'S SCARIEST WOMAN HAS THE YEAR'S SCARIEST BIRTHDAY ♥

 

Outside the wood-panelled lobby of the theatre, the glow of the city’s nightlife is smeared by rain. It’s not yet a dark and stormy night, but, all things considered, it’s well on its way to getting there. 

“I think I need to tell you something,” says Tae. She wraps on her scarf and pulls on her gloves. She’s trying for a tone of dignified composure, but she’s not quite sure she’s achieving it. “I think – I _should_ tell you something. Is that all right?” 

“Of course,” says Kyuubei. “It always is. Is everything okay, Tae-chan?” 

Around them the lobby is emptying, theatregoers pulling on their coats and their haori and their stylishly-cut glittering evening jackets. The umbrella stand just inside the doors is emptying too, a stain puddled on the dark wood beneath it. At Kyuubei’s back is a tall bronze-framed poster from the opening night of _Alien vs Yakuza: The Musical – On Ice!_ , and Tae can see every last smudged fingerprint on the poster’s glass. She can see every last crease in Kyuubei’s coat from where it’s spent the last ninety minutes folded beneath a theatre seat. She can see every last faint movement in the pulse at Kyuubei’s throat. It’s possible that it’s the adrenalin of the moment which is sharpening her vision. It’s also possible it’s not. 

“I’ve been having some – feelings, lately,” says Tae. She’d breathe in deep to steady herself, but under the circumstances it seems rather unnecessary. “Some new feelings. About the things I – want from life, and the things I need, and... I _want_ things—” the words are beginning to spill out freely now; she can’t look up, she can’t risk meeting Kyuubei’s eye, “—that I’ve never wanted before, and it’s – it’s all I can think about. And I don’t know who to tell. I _didn’t_ know who to tell. Or – who would understand me, or believe me – when what I want now is so different from what I’ve always wanted, from what I’ve always _thought_ I wanted—”

Distantly, a first low rumble of thunder growls across the sky. “Tae-chan—”

“And I know this is sudden,” says Tae, her voice and passion rising, “and I know it might seem – unexpected, but the – the truth is, Kyuu-chan, I’ve been trying to hide it from myself. And it’s been difficult. Denying myself. Denying who I am. And what I want. And I can’t – I just can’t do that any longer, and I thought – that if anyone would understand, you’d understand – if anyone wouldn’t judge me for it, then... then _you_ wouldn’t—”

“Tae-chan,” says Kyuubei, again. “You don’t have to say anything else. I understand.”

Tae’s hopes dare to grow. “You... do, Kyuu-chan?” 

“I do,” says Kyuubei, in a tone of nothing but compassion. “There’s nothing else it could be. It’s the obvious conclusion. You’ve become a werewolf, Tae-chan.”

“Ah – not quite, Kyuu-chan.”

“No?” says Kyuubei, and thinks hard for a moment. “Then – a vampire would be my second guess, Tae-chan.”

Thunder rolls, and the city shakes. Overhead, the lobby’s vast tiered chandelier shivers like it’s afraid of the storm; its hundreds of tiny glass candles rattle nervously against each other, chattering like teeth. 

Relief rushes through her the way blood currently doesn’t, warming from the inside out. “I _knew_ you’d understand,” Tae says gratefully. 

She zips her coat, and opens her umbrella; she follows Kyuubei out into the storm. Sheets of water are skidding up beneath the wheels of passing traffic, headlights blurred by rain. 

“It’s a combination of things,” Tae begins, and raises her voice above the hammering rain. “The way I keep dreaming about very old castles that don’t seem to have been vacuumed in decades, to start with. And then the way that I’m usually tearing people’s throats open in those dreams. And the way that just thinking about eating vegetables makes me want to be sick. And the way I have to leave the room when I run a bath, because something about the sight of all that water... all that _fast_ water... all that water moving very, very quickly—” 

“I guessed mainly based on the length of your teeth,” Kyuubei tells her seriously. “They didn’t used to look like that, Tae-chan. I’d remember if they did.”

Overhead, thunder cracks and rolls across the sky. Lightning bursts through the clouds and leaves them in tattered shreds. 

They turn onto the narrow streets near the riverside, where row upon row of food stalls have sprung into life since sunset, undeterred by the rain still hammering down. “I’m sure this isn’t easy to hear,” Tae says bravely. “I’m sure you must have... questions. So if there’s anything, Kyuu-chan, _any_ questions—”

“Only one.” In a single movement swift as water Kyuubei’s sword is drawn and ready: a lethal hair’s breadth from a self-cut throat. “Would you prefer to do the bloodletting yourself, or should I make it easier for you? Say the word, Tae-chan. I’ll make it my final act upon this earth.”

Meat and alcohol and the sizzle of vegetables frying; burnt sugar singeing the air at one stall and sour pickling at the next; barbecuing fish and slow-roasting vegetables... The cacophony of smells along the riverside turns Tae’s stomach but wakes her appetite, which she’s been trying her best to keep satisfied by adding extra strawberry sauce to ice cream, with distinctly limited success. 

“Kyuu-chan,” says Tae, and tries for some other words as well, “Kyuu-chan, _really_ —”

“What’s mine is yours, Tae-chan. Blood included.”

Rain is skidding down the blade. Beneath it there’s a pulse that Tae’s having a great deal of difficulty not noticing: fast, and getting faster. And warm, probably. So very, very warm. It’s been two days since Tae herself felt warm, and it’s also been two days since she could bring herself to eat her own cooking – what was once delicious now turns to ash in her mouth. Even her omelettes: once the best in Edo, and now, _now_... 

Well, still the best in Edo, of course – but to Tae, they’ve begun to taste like charred, smoking refuse scraped from the inner walls of the burned-out shell of a recycling truck. 

“You should... put that away,” says Tae, with an effort. “You should – _really_ put that away, Kyuu-chan.” 

Kyuubei does, reluctantly. “You’re not hungry?”

“No,” Tae says at once. Her stomach almost growls, and hurriedly she ducks out of the rain beneath an overhanging doorway. The shop it belongs to is closed, its windows dark; she sits down on its dry front step and looks out at the river and the riot of food stalls alongside it. Kyuubei sits down beside her. “Well – yes. Yes, I suppose so. But Kyuu-chan, that really doesn’t mean that _you_ should—”

For an instant, the night is transfixed in a flash of blinding white – above the river, lightning’s struck. 

“Does Shinpachi-kun know?” 

Thunder is growling in the sky again, and Tae waits until it’s passed. “I haven’t wanted to scare him,” she says. “No one knows. No one but you. ...Kyuu-chan, are _you_ scared?” 

“Of you? Never,” says Kyuubei. No hesitation, no uncertainty. Tae’s cold heart nevertheless feels, for one brief moment, warm right through. “Of the potential risk of bacterial infections passed on through monkey faeces? Sometimes. But I encourage Jugem Jugem to follow a regular hygiene routine, to minimise the danger, and that allows me to manage my concerns. So I’m sure Shinpachi-kun could learn to do the same.”

The rain is still hammering down, worse with every passing moment. Beyond the temporary shelter of their shop doorway people are starting to run for cover, coats pulled above their heads, umbrellas flapping, their yells rising over the next ominous rumble in the darkly clouded skies. 

Again, lightning flashes. In its stark white light Tae sees that Kyuubei’s absorbed in the task of rolling back one sleeve. “...Kyuu-chan?” 

Beneath the rolled-back sleeve is a bare wrist, and beneath that is a pulse. “I told you,” says Kyuubei stubbornly. “I mean it. My blood is your blood, Tae-chan.”

Two days ago, Tae’s weekly trip to the butcher’s took a remarkably unsuccessful turn after one look at the fresh bloody slabs of beef beneath the counter had caused her to forget all about the Shimura household’s projected dinner menu for the coming week. Those sensible, well-budgeted thoughts had been overpowered by far less sensible, far less well-budgeted thoughts of smashing through the glass, ripping the raw meat apart bare-handed, and swallowing it down fresh and wet with blood; and _those_ thoughts had been overpowered by Tae fleeing the shop without placing her order, and she and Shinpachi have been subsisting on a vegetarian diet ever since. 

“Oh... I couldn’t,” says Tae, and convinces neither of them. “I _couldn’t_ ,” she tries again, as lightning cracks so low above the river that the food stalls erupt with shrieks. “I mean – I really shouldn’t. _You_ really shouldn’t, Kyuu-chan.”

A fleeing passerby sprints past close enough to splash a puddle across their feet. Neither of them reacts. Thunder rumbles the whole city to the ground. 

“I don’t know what I’m doing,” says Tae, attempting reason. “What if – I accidentally... turned you into one, too?” 

“There’s no one I’d rather sentence me to an undead eternity than you, Tae-chan.” 

“What if I accidentally killed you?” 

“There’s no cause I’d rather die for than keeping you alive, Tae-chan. Although I suppose you might already be dead. I’m not sure of the technicalities. Regardless, I’m prepared to die.” 

Lightning must have struck – the rain-drenched riverside acquires an afterimage in stark white and blue – but Tae hardly sees it; she’s having trouble bringing herself to look away from the quickening tick-tick-tick of Kyuubei’s pulse. “You’d... say when,” says Tae. “Wouldn’t you? You’d say when.” 

“I trust you, Tae-chan,” says Kyuubei confidently. 

The thunder is rumbling louder, and longer; the stalls across the street are shaking with the vibrations, canopies battered by the rain. Sooner or later, one of them _has_ to give in; and it’s almost certainly going to be Tae, so really, she might as well surrender and get it over with. If they both want the same thing, she reasons, then surely it’s the sensible thing to do. 

So she does it. 

 

+++

 

“Oh, no,” says Shinpachi, when Tae shakes him gently awake. Without his glasses he’s wide-eyed, wild-eyed; he pats around beside his pillow until he has them, and slides them on. His expression fills with twice as much horror as he looks at her, and Kyuubei just behind her, and he says again, “Oh, no. Oh, _no_ – ane-ue, you didn’t – who was it? Who – don’t tell me,” he blurts, already throwing himself from bed, his hair a shock of unbrushed static, “don’t tell me, it’s better if I don’t know – I’ll get a jacket and we can go. We can make this go away. Whatever you did, I love you, ane-ue, I don’t care what anyone—” 

Mid-sentence, he breaks off with a sound that could be a sob. He pulls a heavier jacket on over his night-time yukata and yanks an empty backpack from his closet, and then he hurries out into the hall and through into the kitchen, shoving things into the bag: rubber kitchen gloves, a handful of Tae’s sharpest kitchen knives, a half-empty bottle of washing-up liquid from beside the sink. 

Tae watches curiously from the doorway, and Kyuubei watches from her side – very much from her side – too pale and shaky to stay standing without leaning against her side: Tae’s doing more to support Kyuubei’s weight than Kyuubei is. The kitchen lights are guttering like candlelight; rain pounds down against the roof. 

Shinpachi slams open the cupboard beneath the sink and pulls out a bottle of bleach as well, then whirls around to face them. “I’m ready,” he says. His voice only wavers slightly; his gaze only flickers helplessly, unhappily, down Tae’s front once or twice. “I’m – whatever you’ve done, I’m ready. Let’s go. Is Kyuubei-san – does Kyuubei-san know? Were you both... involved?”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about, Shin-chan,” Tae says gently. “I think you might still be a little bit asleep, don’t you? Here – sit down, and I’ll make us all a nice warm mug of milk.”

“The blood,” says Shinpachi. “Ane-ue, you’re covered in blood.”

Tae looks down at herself: he’s quite right. She’ll have to get Snack Smile to pay the cost of dry-cleaning again. 

“It’s mine,” says Kyuubei. 

“No one’s going to believe that,” says Shinpachi desperately. “If that’s your excuse, or your – alibi, or... We need to work on it. We—”

“It is Kyuu-chan’s,” says Tae. She touches Shinpachi’s arm, and when he only stares down at it in frozen horror she takes a firmer grip and leads him to the kitchen table. “Sit down, Shin-chan. I need to tell you something.”

He sits down. His bag of equipment he drops onto the table before him, and he stares between the two of them in panicky, grey-faced terror. “I’ll – I’ll say I did it. I will. I’ll say you couldn’t have done it, I’ll say you were here all night, we could get a shuttle to the next galaxy across if we leave right now and then they’ll never be able to say you—”

“You need to listen to your sister.” A quiet rebuke. It’s quieter still for the fact that Kyuubei addresses it directly into the table, already wilted forwards with exhaustion in the seat beside Shinpachi’s. 

And then, for the second time that night, Tae breaks her news. She breaks it gently, but clearly; she leaves no room for misunderstanding. The warmth of blood inside her is soothing, despite the fact it’s not her own; it’s easier than the first time. 

“What?” says Shinpachi. 

“I felt so sure you must have noticed,” says Tae, pouring warmed milk into three mugs, “with the way my cooking has tasted recently – hasn’t it been awful, Shin-chan? Like _this_ —” she takes a sip and spits it back, disgusted, “—like _this_! It tastes like it’s been burning for a decade!” 

Kyuubei drinks too, and drinks again, and drinks until the mug is empty, and afterwards looks only slightly less pale and shaky, but far more contented. “You’ve got no need to worry, Tae-chan. It tastes the same as ever.” 

Shinpachi visibly braces himself before he sips, and visibly flinches after he sips. “ _Exactly_ the same as ever,” he says glumly. “And you said – _what_ did you say?”

Tae breaks her news again. 

Shinpachi takes off his glasses and rubs his eyes. Then he replaces his glasses. “That’s ridiculous,” he says. “I mean, that really is ridiculous. If you’re planning to use _that_ as an excuse, I just – I don’t think the Shinsengumi are going to buy it, ane-ue. I really don’t.”

“I don’t need an excuse,” says Tae patiently. “The truth is, Shin-chan, I didn’t tell you sooner because I wanted to protect you. I didn’t want you to have to share my terrible burden. _The boy whose sister is a monster_ – I didn’t want anyone to be able to say that about you. Can you understand that?”

“People have been saying that for years,” says Shinpachi. “People have been saying that all my life, ane-ue. Are you _serious_?” 

“No one as kind as Tae-chan could ever be a monster,” says Kyuubei, quite possibly by reflex; no one meandering that close to the border of consciousness could have full control of their faculties. 

“Is this really the only reason you woke me up?” demands Shinpachi. His voice is growing strident. “And are you really going along with this, Kyuubei-san? Do you two really think _anyone’s_ going to believe—”

Tae reaches across the table and takes his hand, and presses it to her own wrist; and then she waits, and waits, and waits...

“But that’s,” says Shinpachi, after a while, “medically, that’s – that’s not, I mean, there’s no _way_ that’s...”

Patiently, Tae waits some more. 

“That’s impossible,” says Shinpachi, eventually. “Ane-ue, that’s impossible. You should be dead.”

“That’s not a very nice thing to say to your sister, is it?” She takes a deep – unnecessary – breath and lets it out, and feels much better for it: lighter, brighter, revitalised. “Oh, it _is_ a relief to have that off my chest! I’ll have to tell Kagura-chan next, and Gin-san too, I suppose... Will you fetch your raincoat, Shin-chan?”

“What, now?” says Shinpachi. “In the middle of the night?”

“There’s no telling what dangers could befall Tae-chan if she waits until the morning,” says Kyuubei, sleepily. “She could turn to dust. Or stone. Or burst into flame. If she dies then I’d prefer it if she turned to stone, because we could move her to the park like a statue in her own memory. But I’d prefer it if she didn’t die at all.”

“Me too,” says Tae. “Shin-chan, don’t you agree?”

Shinpachi looks back at her despairingly. “Well... _yes_ ,” he says, “I mean, of course I agree – obviously I don’t want you to _die_ , ane-ue – but I really can’t help feeling you’re not—”

“Well, then!” Tae says brightly, and gets to her feet. “Are you coming too, Kyuu-chan?”

From somewhere in the pillow of Kyuubei’s folded arms, there’s a quiet snore. 

Shinpachi looks at Tae, and then he looks at Kyuubei, and the longer he looks, the more troubled his expression becomes. “All that blood,” he says at last, trying his best to sound casual. “You... said it was Kyuubei-san’s, didn’t you?”

“I did,” agrees Tae. 

“You did. Right, you did. Right,” says Shinpachi, and makes a visible effort to steel his nerves. “Then – um... I don’t know how to ask this, ane-ue—” 

“Then maybe it’s better if you don’t,” says Tae gently. 

Shinpachi’s shoulders sag with relief. He casts her a look of desperate gratitude, and says, “I’ll go and fetch the air horn; it’s the only way to wake Gin-san up sometimes.”

 

+++

 

Huddled beneath their umbrella in the darkness and the driving rain, Shinpachi slides open the door of Gintoki’s flat and hurries in. Tae tries to hurry after him, but something in her gut reels with a lurch of sudden, terrible vertigo, and she recoils from the door. She tries again – the lurch again, nauseous and impossible – and above her, in the dark sky, a roll of thunder growls as low and dangerous as Sadaharu when his dinner’s late. 

Shinpachi looks back and sees her there, stuck outside in the storm. “You’ll get cold out there, ane-ue. Aren’t you coming in?” 

Tae tries again. This time, nothing stops her. 

Gintoki and Kagura are heavy sleepers and reluctant wakers; it takes a team effort to get them corralled in the main room, mostly upright and largely conscious. 

And then, for the fourth time that night, Tae breaks her news. 

“I can’t live like this forever,” she adds, “though I suppose I _could_ live forever, like this... But I’d rather just be cured. I’d rather go back to normal. So that’s why I’d like to hire you.”

“Yorozuya Gura-san’s got your back, boss lady,” says Kagura at once. “Don’t ask Gin-chan; he _says_ he’ll do anything for money but he doesn’t mean it – not _anything_. But _I_ will, uh-huh. I’ve already got my own bucket. And my own meat hook, uh-huh, and my own umbrella in case it gets messy—”

“Wait a minute,” says Gintoki. 

“If you need a supplier then I’m your girl,” announces Kagura, and slaps herself importantly on the chest. “ _You_ know how these things go, boss lady – the supplier says it’s top quality, and then you get it home and find it’s tomato juice, and they’ve watered it down so much that it’s not even good tomato juice. Maximising profits at the customer’s expense, uh-huh, that’s how they do it.” She heaves a world-weary sigh. “If you want the real deal, boss lady, you come to me. _I’ve_ got the good stuff. _I’ve_ got the contacts. _I’ve_ got the butcher’s knife.” 

“Are you offering to kill for me, Kagura-chan?” Tae asks curiously. 

“Business is business,” says Kagura, and turns up her palms in a fatalistic shrug. “In today’s economic climate a girl’s got to take her work where she can find it, boss lady, uh-huh. Odd jobs are a cut-throat industry nowadays.” 

“Not _that_ cut-throat,” says Shinpachi, and covers a yawn. “It’s not happening, anyway. We don’t do murders. It’s against the Yorozuya’s code of honour, or it would be if Gin-san had ever bothered to write one.” 

“ _Wait_ ,” insists Gintoki. 

“Well, the offer’s there,” says Kagura, in a tone that very much suggests the Yorozuya’s code of honour is of less than zero interest to her. “Keep it in mind, uh-huh. Maybe I should do it anyway, get a few bottles in the fridge for emergencies.” 

“You shouldn’t,” says Shinpachi. “Gin-san would only confuse it for strawberry milk and drink it all himself.” 

“Wait,” persists Gintoki. He’s at Shinpachi’s side on the other couch, in his boxer shorts and a T-shirt; he’s as sleep-tousled as Kagura, but far less endearingly so. “Wait, slow down. Let me get this straight. A vampire. A _vampire_.”

Tae bows her head in demure agreement. 

“But – wait,” says Gintoki. “Wait, then what’s the problem? You probably won’t even need an adjustment period, Otae-san. You’re already a predator. You’ll just be sucking your victims’ arteries dry, instead of their wallets. Stay away from garlic and no one’ll even notice a difference. Can we all go back to bed now?”

Out in the rain-drenched darkness through the windows, a fork of lightning strikes so bright and white that for an instant the city is as clear as day. Then the night slams back into place, feeling even darker than before, and inside the Yorozuya office the lights flicker and grow dim. 

Tae touches Kagura’s knee. “I’ve changed my mind,” she tells her, confidentially. “You _should_ start bleeding people dry for me. Start with Gin-san. No one’s likely to miss him, after all.”

“I’ll cut his throat and make him squeal,” promises Kagura. “Let’s call it a freebie, boss lady, his diet’s so disgusting I couldn’t charge you, not when it’ll probably taste so bad—”

She’s cut off by booming thunder. Sadaharu bounds out of the linen cupboard with a whimper of dismay – then pulls up short, ears flattening back against his head as he sees Tae, and skids away so suddenly that his claws score half-circles into the floorboards. He gallops straight through the closed door of Gintoki’s bedroom and into hiding. 

After a moment, Kagura sinks back onto the sofa: Gintoki’s death by exsanguination is delayed at least another night. “ _Nothing_ scares Sadaharu,” she announces, into the silence. 

“Except people with monobrows,” says Shinpachi, “and the crinkly sound when someone unwraps a pack of instant ramen, and pictures of horses. Not real horses, just pictures of them. And thunder, apparently. And—”

“ _Nothing_ , Gin-chan!” Kagura says passionately. “He’s the bravest dog in the world, uh-huh! He’s never been scared of the boss lady before!”

“No? His mistake,” says Gintoki. But his gaze is moving rapidly, uneasily, between Tae and the hole smashed in his bedroom door, and when the next roll of thunder breaks he jumps in fright. 

The sound echoes across the city. The building trembles. In the next room, Sadaharu’s howls of misery begin to grow both louder and more pitiful. 

“Believe me or not, Gin-san,” Tae says conversationally. “But if you could investigate this, I’d appreciate it. And I’d express my appreciation by kindly asking Kagura-chan if she wouldn’t mind _not_ draining your body of all its most important fluids.”

Curled up loyally against Tae’s side, warm as a furnace, Kagura narrows her eyes at Gintoki and draws a finger across her throat. 

“Look,” says Gintoki, “if this is some kind of joke—” 

...but then he trails off, gazing up at the ceiling, his mouth moving soundlessly as he runs through what appears to be a particularly complicated set of sums... 

“—then I don’t care, so long as you pay us,” he concludes. “That old granny downstairs says Catherine’s moving in with us unless I start coughing up the rent, and an extra-large litterbox would stink this place out worse than Kagura’s armpits. You’ve got a deal, Otae-san. And...” as his gaze shifts downwards, and freezes there, “and... blood all over your clothes.” Gintoki gazes at the stains another moment longer, and then he looks up and gives Tae a ghastly smile. “Anyone I knew?”

“I bet it was Pachi,” says Kagura. “He’s been looking sort of weak and feeble lately, but I thought it was just the ageing process, uh-huh. You _should_ turn him into a vampire, boss lady, it’d make him much less bland.”

“Let’s make a start, shall we?” says Shinpachi, very loudly. “Ane-ue, we’ll need all the information we can get – everything you remember, and everything you’ve done – well, _almost_ everything – the... most important details, maybe – well, anyway,” he says, and clears his throat. “When did this all begin?”

And Tae says, “It was a dark and stormy night...”

 

+++

 

The rain is still steady and relentless when Kagura falls asleep in the middle of conversation, and Tae and Shinpachi take their leave. Despite the umbrella, they get drenched all over again on the walk home. 

“I think you should remember that – that... _drinking_ from someone,” Shinpachi says suddenly, as Tae opens the front door, “could – have effects on the other person, too. I think you should think about that, ane-ue.”

It’s the first time he’s spoken since they left the Yorozuya; it’s clearly costing him a desperate effort to even raise the issue. “I’ll think about it,” Tae promises, and hangs up her dripping raincoat. “What in particular should I think about it, Shin-chan?”

“Well – you know,” says Shinpachi. 

“I don’t,” says Tae. 

“No, I mean – _you_ know,” says Shinpachi. He folds up the umbrella, then unfolds it and refolds it again, just to try to avoid letting Tae see quite how crimson he’s become. “If the, the victim – I mean, sometimes they find the – ah, the vampire... irresistible. As in, they can’t resist. Or they’re, um. Drawn towards them. Or they have, they dev— they, um... develop _feelings_. Certain... sorts of feelings. Or—” He notices Tae’s expression of polite interest, and his crimson turns to scarlet. “It happens in films, ane-ue!” 

“Goodness,” Tae says mildly. “I didn’t realise you watched those sorts of films, Shin-chan. Shouldn’t there be an age restriction at the checkout?” 

Shinpachi gives her a look of burning embarrassment. 

“But... you know,” says Tae thoughtfully, as she goes towards the kitchen, “I think Kyuu-chan might be immune to that. Or – possibly the opposite. Kyuu-chan might be so far from immune that it wouldn’t have any effect anyway.” 

“That doesn’t make sense,” says Shinpachi, following close behind. “That’s not how it works, ane-ue, that’s not—ah, um... you’re still here, Kyuubei-san?”

“I just woke up,” says Kyuubei, and looks up at them both with an expression of vague confusion that confirms it. “Did you go out?” 

“Only to the Yorozuya,” says Tae, reassuringly. “Are you feeling better, Kyuu-chan?”

“Did you have any dreams?” blurts Shinpachi, before Tae can stop him. “Any, um – _unusual_ dreams, Kyuubei-san? Anything strange?”

Kyuubei gives him a long, thoughtful look. “I think I dreamed of Tae-chan. I assume I did, anyway. Excuse me, Shinpachi-kun; I should be getting home. Thank you for a lovely evening, Tae-chan.”

“You too, Kyuu-chan,” says Tae fondly. 

As soon as they’re alone again, Shinpachi turns to her in bewilderment. “I think I see what you mean,” he says. “There’s... no way to tell the difference, is there?”

“It might be difficult,” agrees Tae. “But it’s lucky, isn’t it? It’s like Kyuu-chan and I have a built-in safety switch!” 

“I’m not sure that’s a safety switch,” says Shinpachi. 

“Well, _I_ am,” says Tae, which cuts dead his argument before it can begin. The sun’s coming up; she doesn’t have time to squabble. She’s a busy woman, and she needs her immortal rest.

 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> [I'll try and put the second half up tomorrow! And in the meantime I'm off to watch horror films and yell in panic about every single tiny little thing, as per usual, even if it's only the credits starting or a nice innocent landscape shot. Thanks for reading, and any comments would be appreciated! ♥]


	2. Chapter 2

 

A fork of lightning stabs down into the city with all the sudden, purposeful viciousness of Kagura armed with a skewer on hotpot night. Out towards the east, a towering electrical mast flares blindingly bright, then goes dark, and abruptly the lifts down to Yoshiwara lose their power. Trapped in a small dark box half a hundred metres between the city and the under-city, the cluster of would-be johns inside begin to realise, in dawning horror, that it’s highly likely they won’t be found till morning. 

It’s a dark and stormy night. Lately, that’s how all of Edo’s nights have been. 

“Usually, I trust your business instincts,” says her manager. “No one could say I don’t, Otae-chan. No one could say I don’t usually support your ideas for generating revenue. And _not_ because I’m afraid to contradict you,” he adds swiftly, “but because you get results. But this...” Vaguely, helplessly, her manager gestures up at her from behind his desk. “Otae-chan, what _is_ this?”

“What is what?” says Tae politely. 

“This... _look_. This... _style_ you’ve developed.” He stares up at her another moment longer, as though he’s hoping she’ll suddenly understand what on earth he’s talking about and swoop in to save him from having to say it; but she doesn’t understand, and she doesn’t swoop in, and at last her manager visibly summons all his courage to him and says firmly, “We’ve been getting complaints, Otae-chan. We’ve got regulars, and they don’t like it. It’s not what they want. It’s not what they _expect_ – not from you, and not from Snack Smile, and not from the overall Kabukichou cabaret club experience in general. And I can’t blame them, frankly.”

“I’m really not sure what you’re talking about,” says Tae. 

“Look, I like to allow my girls a little freedom,” says her manager. He’s getting heated now, which means he’s forgetting a little of his fear of her. It doesn’t matter; he’ll remember soon enough. They always do. “I don’t tell you what colours to wear. I don’t tell you how to do your make-up, I don’t make rules about how you wear your hair. You can do what you want with all that. I like to give you all a little leeway. You know what I mean?”

Intoxicated by the thought of his own boundless generosity, he seems to be expecting an answer. Tae bows her head demurely. 

“But you’re taking liberties, Otae-chan. This is too far.”

Again, she begins, “Boss, I’m really not sure—”

“The cape,” says her manager. 

Tae touches its silver clasp, fastened where her collarbones meet. It’s a remarkably nice cape, heavy black and lined in red, and whenever she turns it swirls out around her with a darkly stylish flair that’s satisfying on a deep, fundamental level she would find it very difficult to explain. “Would you rather I caught a chill and couldn’t come to work at all? The nights are getting cold, boss. Winter’s on its way.” 

“Then wear a coat,” says her manager. “Wear a scarf and gloves and hat like all the other girls do. Like _you_ used to. Keep wearing that thing to and from the club, if you have to! Just take it off when you’re _on the job_ , for God’s sake. The collar’s so high your customers can barely see your face.”

“A little feminine mystique goes a long way, boss.”

Her manager hardly seems to hear her. “Men know what they’re getting when they come to Snack Smile, Otae-chan! It’s the traditional look. The girl-next-door look. That’s what they come for, and that’s what we give them. If they want a cosplay club, all they have to do is step outside again and they’ll find plenty. _You_ know how it works!” he cries, and Tae concedes that she does. “Right! So tell me, Otae-chan – why in hell are you dressed like _that_?” 

Tae smoothes her palms down the red velvet at her waist. The fabric is as dark as wine, or perhaps as some other deep red liquid, and it’s also immaculate. All of the lace edging is pristine; the hem of her dress plunges to the floor, as modest as it is majestic; her sleeves open wide and trail down into elegant silky points. Politely bemused, she says, “I’m afraid I don’t understand what the problem is, boss.”

“The problem,” says her manager, to whom the power of speech only seems to be coming with some difficulty, “is _all of it_. Sort it out, Otae-chan. God knows you’ve bought enough kimono with club money. _Wear them_.”

 

+++

 

Getting ready for work the next evening, Tae restricts herself – unwillingly – to the drawers where her kimono live. 

None of them are speaking to her, though; none of them are _calling_ to her. Not in the way that lace and velvet, red and black, sweeping capes and swooping hemlines are calling to her, anyway. Reluctantly, she takes out her one-time favourite – soft green, soft pink, soft flowers – but then she sees _beneath_ it... 

There at the bottom of her drawer, pristinely wrapped and utterly unfamiliar, is a kimono Tae has no recollection of ever having bought, but whose dark, glossy satin feels right in her hands in a way that none of her others currently do. She unwraps it: the parts are all there. 

She dresses herself for work. She doesn’t need a reflection to know that she looks as radiantly beautiful as she’s ever looked. Her new kimono is a symphony of black and blacker blacks, with embroidery in even blacker black cobwebbing across her sleeves; the reds are deep and startling, arranged in splashes of a mildly unnerving, arterial design. 

When she arrives at work, her manager takes one look at her and slams his office door. From behind it comes his muffled, despairing voice: “Just do what you want, Otae-chan. Do whatever you want. I give up.”

The glittering lights of the candelabra shiver like candles guttering in a breeze when she walks out into the club. Shadows jump and lurch across the walls. Tae had been planning to do whatever she wanted anyway, but it’s nice to have permission. 

 

+++

 

A few nights later, all of them dark and stormy, she steps out into the emptying Kabukichou streets once her shift has finished and finds Shinpachi waiting for her. 

“We were called out for a midnight exorcism,” he tells her, covering a yawn, “except there wasn’t a ghost, or at least we didn’t see a ghost, so Kagura-chan poured talcum powder on herself to pretend to be the ghost so we could exorcise her instead, and keep the client happy; but then it turned out there _was_ a ghost, and it thought Kagura-chan’s impression was disrespectful – well, I can’t say I blame it, the way she was yodelling...” He yawns again, hugely. When he’s done he gives her a tired smile. “Anyway, then the poltergeist blockaded all the exits and it was almost two o’ clock before we managed to crack the secret trapdoor’s riddle and escape. So I thought I’d come and meet you. Don’t get too close, though,” Shinpachi adds hastily, twisting away from a welcoming pat to his arm, “Gin-san thinks we might have been cursed, and he’s not sure if it’s contagious yet.”

“That was a very nice idea, Shin-chan,” says Tae fondly. It would have been even nicer still if she didn’t already have plans for her very early morning, but he wasn’t to know: this time of the day is usually hers, and Shinpachi is usually sleeping, and what a big sister gets up to behind her little brother’s back is far better left unshared. She tugs the sharp collar of her cape up a little higher round her ears, and offers a smile to her second visitor: who returns it, and then slides a grave, significant glance in Shinpachi’s direction. 

“We’ll work something out,” Tae tells Kyuubei, her voice a reassuring undertone. 

“Work what out?” says Shinpachi, falling into step beside the two of them. “What are you doing here anyway, Kyuubei-san? Not that you shouldn’t be, I mean, but – it’s a bit early, isn’t it?”

“It’s difficult to see Tae-chan otherwise,” says Kyuubei. “And she needs—”

“—not to be out in the daytime,” says Tae quickly, “you know how I don’t like it, Shin-chan. It’s easier to socialise at night, nowadays.”

“I have to be up early for the dojo anyway,” says Kyuubei. “This way, I just get up a little earlier, and then Tae-chan has—”

“—some company walking home from work,” says Tae, just as quickly, “which is always nice, just like it’s nice you’ve come to meet me, Shin-chan – and you never do know what kind of people are going to be out and about at a time like this, do you? You run into some very strange sorts at this time of night—”

At the side of the road, a menu board surges upwards and leaps to its feet; it whirls around and throws out its arms, and howls, “ _Otae-san_! On the menu today, my love for you! Devour it, consume it, mix it with a little dressing and—”

Kondou hits the lamppost as hard as Tae hits Kondou. The metal pole bulges backwards beneath the force of his impact, curving like the string of a bow; he slides down and crumples to the pavement. 

“Ane-ue...” says Shinpachi. It seems for a moment like he’s going to say more; but then he presses his lips together and trudges over the road to Kondou’s side instead, to pick through the wreckage of his menu board. “I wonder if he took it from a real restaurant? Ah, no... this is definitely Kondou-san’s. Um, you probably don’t want to see what he’s written, ane-ue. I’ll just – throw this out, or something, shall I?”

Tae hardly hears him. She flexes her fingers, gazing across the street to where the lamppost stands in its swooping curve. “How far would you say I hit him, Kyuu-chan?”

“Perhaps... ten metres, Tae-chan?”

“Ten metres,” Tae echoes, forlornly. “Yes, that’s about what I thought. Thank you, Kyuu-chan. _Ten metres_...”

“Should we call the Shinsengumi and tell them where to pick him up?” asks Shinpachi, joining them again with an armful of splintered wood. “Though it’s not too cold out, so perhaps we should just leave him. He can sleep it off.”

“ _And_ the damage to that lamppost,” says Tae. With an effort, she tears her troubled gaze away from it; she looks at her own hand, and then at Kondou – rolled considerately onto his side by Shinpachi, still peacefully unconscious – and then at her two companions, her expression filled with worry. 

“...Tae-chan?” says Kyuubei. 

“...Ane-ue?” says Shinpachi. 

“I’m _dangerous_ ,” says Tae. Her voice is hushed with the horrified realisation. “I don’t know my own strength anymore! _Ten metres_ – I sent poor Kondou-san flying that far! And look at that lamppost... That’s not human, Shin-chan. That’s not normal.”

“That’s completely normal,” says Shinpachi. “I wish it wasn’t, but it is. You do this all the time, ane-ue.”

But Tae is lost in her own rising anguish, and she’s not listening. “How can I blame anyone who calls me a monster?” she says, her voice nearly breaking with the weight of her own emotion. “How can I expect to live amongst humans when I know now what I’m capable of?—what monstrous feats I can perform? How can I expect to be treated as an equal, and not a danger to mankind?”

“Ane-ue—” 

“No – no, I _am_ dangerous,” Tae says passionately, “I know it, Shin-chan; don’t try to tell me I’m not!” 

“I wasn’t going to,” says Shinpachi, taken aback. “I know you’re dangerous. But ane-ue, you’ve _always_ been—”

“I’m a danger, and I don’t know my own strength. I could...” Tae’s gazing down despairingly at her own hands. It’s hard to make herself say the words, but she forces them out: “I could... _hurt_ someone. I really could.”

“You hurt people all the time,” says Shinpachi. 

Tae grants him no reply. The streets are slowly developing into a slightly less oppressive shade of darkness. Soaring up above the city, the bulk of the shuttle station is emerging from the gloom in towering silhouette. She manages to lift her eyes, and meets Kyuubei’s – but there’s only compassion there, and her cold heart would beat harder if it could. 

“Tae-chan,” says Kyuubei, in a tone of tragic sympathy. “Tae-chan... You’re _not_ a monster. But even if you were, it wouldn’t matter. You’d still be Tae-chan. You’d still be perfect. You’d just also be a monster.”

“That’s the least motivational thing I’ve ever heard,” says Shinpachi, and then, “Oh, come _on_!” cries Shinpachi, as Tae bursts into tears and throws her arms around Kyuubei in a hug so heartfelt that Kyuubei staggers back a step before catching her and returning the hug, folding her tighter into it – so warm, so _very_ warm... “ _Ane-ue_! Ane-ue, seriously, you’ve been like this for as long as I remember – and for as long as _you_ remember, Kyuubei-san, don’t act like this is the first you’ve seen of it—”

“You can only try to live a good life,” Kyuubei’s saying passionately, muffled by the dark velvet panelling at Tae’s shoulder, “or a good death, or un-life, depending on your circumstances. You can only try to be a good person, Tae-chan. Or vampire, or monster, depending on your—” 

“I should have just gone straight home,” says Shinpachi. 

Tae’s hiccupping a little when at last she pulls away. “Even though you know the risk,” she says, voice trembling, “even though you’ve seen the dark reality of the monster I’ve become... Would you both still—”

“Always,” says Kyuubei, without waiting for the question. 

“We’re _going_ ,” says Shinpachi, without waiting for the question either, and stomps off ahead of them at bad-tempered high speed. 

They’re almost home before he remembers to check the two of them are following, and then his double-take is of such a professional standard that it’s almost a shame the cameras aren’t rolling. 

“What is it?” asks Tae. 

“You’re _glittering_ ,” says Shinpachi. 

Tae looks at Kyuubei, who makes an expression of bemusement. She looks down at herself, and finds no explanation there, either. She looks back at Shinpachi. “I’m what, Shin-chan?”

“Glittering!” cries Shinpachi. He grabs her hand and raises it before her, giving it a shake for unnecessary emphasis. “Look! You too, Kyuubei-san, _look_!”

Tae looks at Kyuubei. Then she looks at her hand, and then she looks back at Kyuubei. In the first pale light of dawn, their shadows are stretching out a very long way before them. “Shin-chan,” she starts, as gentle as she can—

“It must be the sun,” says Shinpachi, with an air of fevered realisation, “that must be why you prefer going out at night, ane-ue! On some level, you must have known – that when the sunlight hit you, you’d – you’d... _sparkle_. It must be a defence mechanism! It makes sense! Going out at night stops _this_ from—”

“Shin-chan,” Tae says again, gently, and waits until he manages to stop himself from babbling. “I always come home at dawn, Shin-chan; I see the sunlight every morning. And Kyuu-chan sees it with me. So I think if the sun had anything to do with anything, one of us would have noticed by now. And personally... well, personally, I don’t see what you’re talking about.”

Shinpachi hasn’t let go of her hand. “Look,” he says, and holds it up before her again, “and now – _look_!” as he moves it to the side, out of the shadow of her body and into the watery morning light. He stares between Tae and Kyuubei with a look of slightly wild-eyed triumph. “You see? Ane-ue, do you see?”

Tae’s not sure she does. Beauty begins on the inside, and so what if her natural inner glow is shining slightly brighter today? She says as much, and Shinpachi turns to Kyuubei in desperate appeal. “But _you_ can see it, Kyuubei-san, can’t you – _you_ can see—”

“I don’t see any difference,” says Kyuubei. “Tae-chan is always radiant.”

The wild-eyed triumph goes out of Shinpachi’s eyes. Everything else does, too: his expression becomes lifelessly flat. He drops Tae’s hand and flatly says, “You know, I think I’m going to get some sleep. See you later, ane-ue.”

They watch him go. 

The instant the front gate shuts behind him, Tae says, “I’m sorry I kept interrupting you before, Kyuu-chan – but Shin-chan really isn’t being as open-minded about my condition as I’d like, and it’s easier if he doesn’t know we were – that he was interrupting a, a—”

“Breakfast meeting?” suggests Kyuubei. “I don’t mind, Tae-chan. I won’t tell. Shall I come in?”

Though the sun is slowly rising, inside the Shimura household it’s as dark as night. The oppressive gloom has been achieved through the strategic hanging of heavy velvet curtains across all windows and veranda doors. Other, gauzier curtains are hanging, too – in doorways, in corners, clinging like cobwebs between ceilings and walls – which serve no practical purpose, but which have a tendency to flutter ominously every time Tae passes by. She’s not sure how or when they got there, but now they’re there, they feel _right_ ; they feel appropriate, the same way that wearing colours other than red and black feels anything but. 

“Shin-chan’s put the candles out again,” Tae observes, as they pass through the shadowy hall towards her room. Drippy, unlit candles sit wedged into candlesticks all along the hall; they squat maliciously on empty surfaces; they cluster in dark corners. Thin lines of smoke still rise from some of their wicks. “Really, he’s taking all of this worse than I am. Wouldn’t you think he’d be a little more supportive of his big sister’s lifestyle choices?”

“He’ll come around,” says Kyuubei. “Remember when we switched from analogue to digital broadcasting, Tae-chan? People said it would never work. They said we’d never get used to it. But we all did, in the end.”

The lacy curtains outside Shinpachi’s bedroom have been taken down, folded into a neat little pile, and left pointedly outside his closed door. “I do hope so,” Tae says with a sigh, and opens her own door. 

Inside, there are rather more silk pillows than there used to be. There’s rather more dark crimson upholstery in general than there used to be – none of which she bought, and all of which sprung up of its own accord, from nowhere, like a packet of spilled seeds suddenly flourishing. From every corner, candlelight casts a satisfyingly eerie glow. A framed photo of her and Shinpachi at some long-ago birthday party has aged about fifty years, yellowing and crinkled; their stares have developed an uncanny way of following Tae around her room. 

She sits down beside Kyuubei on her bed. “Tell me honestly, Kyuu-chan. _Have_ you noticed any side effects?”

Kyuubei thinks about it for a long time, carefully undoing the knot of a deep red cravat. “Tojo keeps complaining that my taste in clothes has changed. And I suppose it has.” A pause, to concentrate on the tiny, complicated buttons tucked inside the sharply winged collar beneath. “But that’s a natural part of growing older, Tae-chan. I don’t think you’re to blame.”

“No... strange desires?” says Tae. 

“No stranger than usual,” says Kyuubei. “Can I hang up my tailcoat? It creases very easily.”

Sleek and black and suitable for any impromptu formal dinner: Tae takes it to her wardrobe. When she comes back, Kyuubei’s unfastening the buttons of the crisp white shirt-cuffs. “Because if anything _does_ change, you should tell me. Tell me right away,” says Tae, “and I’ll take Kagura-chan up on her offer to rob the hospital’s blood bank for me. Because I hate to imagine what could happen if I ever – went too far, Kyuu-chan, and didn’t realise I was doing it...”

With complete assurance, Kyuubei says, “That won’t happen, Tae-chan.”

“Believe me, Kyuu-chan, I don’t like to think of it either,” says Tae earnestly, “but if, _if_ – if I somehow... didn’t notice, or was distracted, or—”

“I meant you going too far,” says Kyuubei. “It’s not possible, Tae-chan. You can go as far as you like.”

The buttons of Kyuubei’s waistcoat are little silver bats, winking merrily in the candlelight. Something feels a little off about that, just as something feels a little off about Tae having had to pull a screen across the family shrine to hide it from her sight... but try as she might, she can’t work out where the problem lies. Lately, it’s become far easier to follow her instincts than to think about them. Perhaps it’s best not to think about this, either. 

At least, Tae comforts herself, tonight she remembered to put down plastic sheeting. Trying to get bloodstains out of satin has been a nightmare, every time. 

 

+++

 

It’s a dark and stormy night. Beyond the windows of the Yorozuya office, rain hurls itself against the streets and the rooftops and the few people hurrying huddled in the darkness with as much violent force as though it’s taking out a grudge. 

“It’s started causing me some problems,” says Tae. “Not big ones, really. But enough problems to be annoying.”

On her left at the kotatsu, Kagura’s listening attentively. Her red pyjamas are patterned with a curly little design that looks rather like Sadaharu’s eyebrows. 

“It takes me an extra twenty minutes to get to work nowadays, Kagura-chan, did you know that? Because I can’t cross the river. I have to go the long way round. All that running water...” Tae shudders. “It makes me feel seasick just thinking about it.”

“If you could turn into a bat, it would be better,” says Kagura. In the blissful dry heat beneath the kotatsu, she nudges her knee comfortingly against Tae’s. “You could fly into the high-security vaults in the bank and hide up in the shadows and no one would notice you. And then when everyone’s gone home you could turn back into a human and rob it, uh-huh, and then you’d be rich. No one minds if someone wears a cape all the time if they’re rich.” 

The night outside is blacker than any night in the depths of Kabukichou should be; the rain and the clouds swallow up the neon. The endless, ominous growling of the thunder swallows up the music. No one wants to party on a night like this. The bright warm inside of the room is reflected in perfect shining detail against the dark, rain-slicked window, except for one small error. 

“It’s the small things,” says Tae, ruefully. “The sort of things you’d never imagine you’d miss, those are what I miss the most. My own reflection, for instance.”

In the window, the door at Tae’s back slides open, but in the window there’s no sign of Tae. In the window, Shinpachi lets himself in and joins Kagura where she’s sitting alone at the kotatsu. 

“Or the taste of my own cooking,” continues Tae. 

“Your cooking tastes exactly the same as usual,” says Shinpachi. “I keep telling you, ane-ue. _Exactly_ the same.”

Shining in the window’s reflection, the door slides open again. “Ketsuno-san says tomorrow will be dark and stormy,” reports Gintoki, taking the kotatsu’s fourth side. “She says the day after that will be dark and stormy, too. Then I got distracted thinking about how soft and pink her lips looked, so I didn’t hear the rest of it, but afterwards they showed the graphics for her weekly forecast and all of that was dark and stormy, too.”

Tae heaves a sigh. She doesn’t need to, because she no longer needs to breathe at all, but it gives the right effect. 

“The weather might _not_ be your fault, ane-ue,” says Shinpachi optimistically. “I mean, it might just be a stormy time of year. Autumn’s always when the thunderstorms come, isn’t it? It might all just be a coincidence.”

“It might,” allows Tae. “But I don’t think so. I think it’s me.”

The rain drums against the roof, and the walls, and the windows. Sadaharu has developed an uncanny knack for always being in a different room from whichever room Tae’s in, and tonight he’s managed to cram his bulk beneath Gintoki’s desk, his snores echoing through the wall. 

“About our research for you, boss lady – I saw Madao in the park the other day,” offers Kagura. “Sucking on a dead pigeon, uh-huh.”

A thoughtful silence fills the room. 

Then Shinpachi does his best to summon up the cheery interest he’d react with if Kagura had said almost anything else, and says, “Ah... Hasegawa-san? Is that – um, is that... so?” 

“It repulsed me. So I told him it repulsed me,” says Kagura, “and he screamed and panicked, like a weak man. Because he’s a weak man. And then he told me the hunger was upon him so I had to run as far from him as possible, uh-huh. But I was gonna do that anyway, because of the smell. So I told him that too, and then he said—”

—that some two weeks ago Hasegawa had been sleeping beneath a hydrangea bush in the city park when the thin, high sound of cackling laughter had awoken him, and he’d seen then that the park was awash in the eerie silver light of a fat round full moon, and that a human-like figure was silhouetted against it but soaring downwards, closer, ever closer, something like wings or perhaps like a cape spread open behind it, and that the only thing Hasegawa remembered, after the terrible words of the curse this creature had spoken upon him, was the memory of a terrible pain like fire in his blood, in his very veins, worse than the pain of unemployment, of lost love, of a life of ceaseless abject shame—

“—so I told him to get a grip, uh-huh, and some new material,” Kagura goes on, slipping out of her heartlessly accurate impression as easily as she’d slipped into it, “and I already knew about the rest of it, anyway. Me and Zura watched a chat-show about it.” 

“About... violent supernatural attacks at the full moon?” says Shinpachi. 

“About men whose lives are going nowhere retreating into fantasy instead of confronting their own worthless realities,” says Kagura, and adds knowledgeably, “It’s the biggest emotional pandemic in modern-day society, uh-huh. That’s why video games sell so well in the older demographics. That’s why Gin-chan buys Shounen Jump. So I told Madao that too,” she says. “And then I left.”

The rain keeps drumming. 

“Just from interest,” says Gintoki, after a while, “just from curiosity... when _was_ the last full moon, Patsuan?”

Shinpachi consults his stack of scribbled research notes. “Two weeks ago,” he reports. “But we already looked into that, and my sister wasn’t affected until a few... a few days later... Oh, _no_ , Gin-san – you don’t think he...?” 

In the other room, Sadaharu’s tail beats against the floor a few times, seized by a particularly interesting dream. 

“Technically, the hunger’s always upon him,” says Gintoki. “Because he never has enough money to eat.”

Around the table, there’s a murmur of assent. 

“But I suppose... even Hasegawa-san doesn’t usually eat dead pigeons, does he?” Tae wonders aloud. “Even Hasegawa-san has _some_ standards, doesn’t he?”

“Not eating it,” corrects Kagura. “Sucking on it. Like when you’re trying to get the last bit of juice out of a Chuubert stick.”

Another thoughtful silence. 

“You didn’t happen to notice if he was, ah... _sparkling_ , did you?” asks Shinpachi. 

Kagura shakes her head. 

“But you wouldn’t be able to tell if he was, anyway,” says Gintoki, “not under all the dirt.”

The thoughtful silence returns. 

“His sunglasses fell off when he was sucking on that pigeon,” says Kagura, wrinkling her nose with the effort of recollection. “His eyes were red, uh-huh. Red and sort of... glowing.” 

“Maybe he’d just been crying,” says Gintoki. “Who wouldn’t be crying, if they had to live like him?”

But as one, the Yorozuya Gin-san slide furtive, scrutinising looks in Tae’s direction. She bats her lashes obligingly, and Shinpachi sighs in relief. “Brown,” he says. “Normal brown. So I wonder...” 

“I wish I could say that I didn’t see Hasegawa-san the night it happened,” says Tae, “but I can’t. I don’t remember. My memory is very fuzzy until the morning afterwards. Perhaps that’s why. Perhaps that’s my subconscious, trying to protect me from the reality of Hasegawa-san.”

Somewhere, lightning strikes. The afterimage shivers through the room, white and bright and blinding. 

“It _is_ the sort of thing that would happen to him,” says Shinpachi, as though he’s admitting something he’d rather not. “Being the first victim of a city-wide vampire infection, I mean. That would be just his luck. And he sleeps outdoors, doesn’t he? I bet if there was a real vampire in town, looking around for – for dinner, or something... I bet he’d be easy prey.”

Tonight’s thunder is a low, steady rumbling, like a drumroll constantly building up towards the cymbal clash crescendo. For a while, it’s the only sound in the silence. 

“Sometimes,” begins Kagura, her voice faraway in thought, “if you get rid of the main one, then all the other ones go as well. Like if you capture the boss gangster, uh-huh, and tie him to a chair and leave him in a basement and break some of his bones before you let him go, then all the other gangsters’ll start saying they were never gangsters to begin with. Sometimes you’ve _got_ to get rid of the main one, uh-huh. Sometimes it’s the only way.”

“We can just... snap a leg off the table,” says Gintoki. He’s staring into nothingness like his mind is a thousand miles away. “Can’t we? We can get Sadaharu to chew on it till it’s sharp. That’ll be fine. Painless, even. I mean, we don’t know it _won’t_ be painless.”

The four of them sit in silence for a while. Then, without a word, Tae reaches out to cover Kagura and Shinpachi’s hands with her own. “Thank you,” she says. “You too, Gin-san. I’ll keep this quiet. But... thank you.”

“Just – just leave it to us,” says Shinpachi. His voice is low; his gaze is fixed on his own folded hands. “Don’t worry about it, ane-ue. We’ll get it sorted out for you.”

None of them speak. There’s nothing to say. Tae draws her cape around her with an impressive swirl of red silk lining, and lets herself out into the storm. 

 

+++

 

Beyond the walls of the Kodoukan dojo, the night is dark and the storm is raging. Within the walls of the Kodoukan dojo, in the crimson-walled privacy of Tae’s bedroom, Tae, Kyuubei, and Shinpachi’s laptop are absorbed in a session of intensive internet research when the antique grandfather clock which recently appeared in the entrance hall begins to chime the midnight hour. 

They fall quiet until the echo of the final ominous strike fades into silence, and then Tae picks up where she left off. “ _Do_ you think it’s worth paying extra for the cushioned lining? I mean, I could just put a pillow in there, couldn’t I?” 

“You could get your name engraved on the top,” suggests Kyuubei, studying the list of customisation options. “Just in case you lose it, or mistake it for someone else’s. Or... you could have a small bell inside the lid, in case it turns out you’re alive. Although—” a sudden silence, as Kyuubei plunges deep into thought and then, slowly, emerges, “—you _are_ alive.” 

“And I’m sure there’d be space for a blanket,” Tae perseveres, trying to convince herself, “it can’t be _that_ narrow, surely—”

Something changes. Nothing Tae can see, or hear, or feel – but inside her mind, the whole world seems to shift very slightly sideways. 

Thunder rumbles once, and doesn’t rumble again. 

Tae blinks, and shakes her head to clear it, and looks around her room. 

“Isn’t it dark in here?” she says after a moment, in dawning surprise. All those candles, and all those gauzy, fluttering curtains: it’s nothing but one big, gloomy, crimson-tinged fire hazard. “And – oh, _really_ ,” Tae goes on, disapprovingly, as she catches sight of herself in the mirror across the room, “what _am_ I wearing? Was this my idea? I lookridiculous.”

Kyuubei doesn’t contradict her. That alone makes it clear that Tae’s not the only one who’s undergoing some radical shifts of perspective. 

“I’m... really not sure what I was thinking,” says Tae, looking in bemusement at the wide variety of glossy polished coffins on the laptop’s screen. “My bed looks much more comfortable than any of those.” She stares for another bewildered moment, and then she shuts the laptop. “I expect Shin-chan will be home soon, anyway. If it’s... over. If it’s done.”

The rain was hammering, but now it’s pattering softly against the roof. The storm is coming to a peaceful end. The silence in the room is sombre. 

“Hasegawa-san gave his life for a good cause,” Kyuubei tells her, quietly. “The best of all causes, Tae-chan. He wouldn’t want us to grieve him.” 

“Let’s not think about it,” says Tae. Her voice stays low. “Let’s leave that burden for Gin-san to bear, and... let’s focus on the positives. Doesn’t that sound like a better idea, Kyuu-chan?”

“Much better,” Kyuubei says at once, in relief. “For instance – your teeth are back to normal, Tae-chan. And you’re breathing.”

“And my reflection’s come back to me,” Tae says happily. “And in a way, isn’t that the happiest ending of all?”

“ _Anything’s_ a happy ending so long as you’re breathing, Tae-chan.” 

And Tae finds that she agrees completely.

 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> [DISCLAIMER: no Hasegawas were harmed in the making of this fic, or at least no more than usual. Some possibilities: 
> 
> a) the Yorozuya stake him through the chest, causing him to be medically dead for a while until the paramedics bring him back; but the curse is lifted, and Hasegawa is so desperately grateful to the Yorozuya for his freedom that it outweighs his horror at their murder attempt; 
> 
> b) the Yorozuya lift his curse through some non-fatal but abjectly humiliating (for Hasegawa) technique that Shinpachi found online, probably involving dancing, chanting, and ritual nudity; 
> 
> c) the Yorozuya kill him, which lifts the curse, but the Gintama universe is so fundamentally against Hasegawa ever being able to get what he wants, i.e. the blissful embrace of eternal rest, that hijinks ensue and he ends up resurrected as a zombie just as he was settling happily into the afterlife;
> 
> d) the Yorozuya discover he was never a vampire at all, team up with him, and all work together to destroy the original vampire in a heartwarming night of adventures and friendship, which ends with Hasegawa recruited to the Yorozuya as a permanent fourth member, now happily employed and beloved by all; 
> 
> e) ANYTHING YOU WANT!!! 
> 
> Happy belated Halloween, happy belated Tae's birthday, and thanks for reading! I'm [over here on tumblr](http://www.suitablyskippy.tumblr.com/), and any comments would be appreciated. ♥]


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